Whenever you take offense at someone’s wrongdoing, immediately turn to your own similar failings, such as seeing money as good, or pleasure, or a little fame—whatever form it takes. By thinking on this, you’ll quickly forget your anger, considering also what compels them—for what else could they do? Or, if you are able, remove their compulsion.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 10.30
Earlier we were reminded of Socrates‘s tolerant belief that “no one does wrong on purpose.” The clearest proof of that hypothesis? All the times we did wrong without malice or intention. Remember them? The time you were rude because you hadn’t slept in two days. The time you acted on bad information. The time you got carried away, forgot, didn’t understand. The list goes on and on.
This is why it is so important not to write people off or brand them as enemies. Be as forgiving of them as you are of yourself. Cut them the same slack you would for yourself so that you can continue to work with them and make use of their talents.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Anything that must yet be done, virtue can do with courage and promptness. For anyone would call it a sign of foolishness for one to undertake a task with a lazy and begrudging spirit, or to push the body in one direction and the mind in another, to be torn apart by wildly divergent impulses.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 31.b-32
If you start something and right away feel yourself getting lazy and irritated, first ask yourself: Why am I doing this? If it really is a necessity, ask yourself: What’s behind my reluctance? Fear? Spite? Fatigue?
Don’t forget ahead hoping that someone will come along and relieve you of this task you don’t want to do. Or that someone else will suddenly explain why what you’re doing matters. Don’t be the person who says yes with their mouth but no with their actions. Steve Jobs told BusinessWeek in 2005, only midway through Apple’s stunning rise to becoming one of the world’s most valuable companies: “Quality is much better than quantity…. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 123.3
Is there a person so rich that there is literally nothing they can’t afford? Surely there isn’t. Even the richest people regularly fail in their attempts to buy elections, to purchase respect, class, love, and any number of other things that are not for sale.
If obscene wealth will never get you everything you want, is that the end of it? Or is there another way to solve for that equation? To the Stoics, there is: by changing what it is that you want. By changing how you think, you’ll manage to get it. John D. Rockefeller, who was as rich as they come, believed that “a man’s wealth must be determined by the relation of his desires and expenditures to his income. If he feels rich on $10 and has everything he desires, he really is rich.”
Today, you could try to increase your wealth, or you could take a shortcut and just want less.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
The founder of the universe, who assigned to us the laws of life, provide that we should live well, but not in luxury. Everything needed for our well-being is right before us, whereas what luxury requires is gathered by many miseries and anxieties. Let us use this gift of nature and count it among the greatest things.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 119.15b
Even in his own time, Seneca was criticized for preaching Stoic virtues while accumulating one of the largest fortunes in Rome. Seneca was so rich that some historians speculate that major loans he made to the inhabitants of what is now Britain caused what became a horrifically brutal uprising there. His critics’ derisive nickname for him was “The Opulent Stoic.”
Seneca’s response to this criticism is pretty simple: he might have wealth, but he didn’t need it. He wasn’t dependent on it or addicted to it. Nor, despite his large bank account, was he considered to be anything close to Rome’s most lavish spenders and pleasure hunters. Whether his rationalization was true or not (or whether he was a tad hypocritical), his is a decent prescription for navigating today’s materialistic and wealth-driven society.
This is the pragmatic instead of the moralistic approach to wealth.
We can still live well without becoming slaves to luxury. And we don’t need to make decisions that force us to continue to work and work and work and drift further from study and contemplation in order to get more money to pay for the things we don’t need. There is no rule that says financial success must mean that you live beyond your means. Remember: humans can be happy with very little.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Heraclitus would shed tears whenever he went out in public—Democritus laughed. One saw the whole as a parade of miseries, the other of follies. And so, we should take a lighter view of things and bear them with an easy spirit, for it is more human to laugh at life than to lament it.
—Seneca, On Tranquility Of Mind, 15.2
Is this observation the origin of that famous expression about frustrating news: “I don’t know whether to laugh or cray?” The Stoics saw little purpose in getting angry or sad about things that are indifferent to our feelings. Especially when those feelings end up making us feel worse.
It’s also another bit of evidence that the Stoics were hardly some depressing, bitter group of old men. Even when things were really bad, when the world made them want to weep in despair or rage, they chose to laugh about it.
Like Democritus, we can make that same choice. There is more humor than hate to be found in just about every situation. And at least humor is productive—making things less heavy, not more so.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
I was shipwrecked before I even boarded … the journey showed me this—how much of what we have is unnecessary, and how easily we can decide to rid ourselves of these things whenever it’s necessary, never suffering the loss.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 87.1
Zeno, widely considered to be the founder of the school of Stoicism, was a merchant before he was a philosopher. On a voyage between Phoenicia and Peiraeus, his ship sank along with its cargo. Zeno ended up in Athens, and while visiting a bookstore he was introduced to the philosophy of Socrates and, later, an Athenian philosopher named Crates. These influences drastically changed the course of his life, leading him to develop the thinking and principles that we now know as Stoicism. According to the ancient biographer Diogenes Laertius, Zeno joked, “Now that I’ve suffered shipwreck, I’m on a good journey,” or according to another account, “You’ve done well, Fortune, driving me thus to philosophy,” he reportedly said.
The Stoics weren’t being hypothetical when they said we ought to act with a reverse clause and that even the most unfortunate events can turn out to be for the best. The entire philosophy is founded on that idea!
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Won’t you be walking in your predecessors’ footsteps? I surely will use the older path, but if I find a shorter and smoother way, I’ll blaze a trail there. The ones who pioneered these paths aren’t our masters, but our guides. Truth stands open to everyone, it hasn’t been monopolized.
—Seneca, Moral Letters, 33.11
Traditions are often time-tested best practices for doing something. But remember that today’s conservative ideas were once controversial, cutting-edge, and innovative. This is why we can’t be afraid to experiment with new ideas.
In Seneca‘s case, he might be embracing some new philosophical insight that improves on the writing of Zeno or Cleanthes. In our case, perhaps a breakthrough in psychology improves on the writing of Seneca or Marcus Aurelius. Or perhaps we have a breakthrough of our own. If these ideas are true and better, embrace them—use them. You won’t need to be a prisoner of dead old men who stopped learning two thousand years ago.
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
I’ll never be ashamed to quote a bad writer with a good saying.
—Seneca, On Tranquility Of Mind, 11.8
One of the striking things about Seneca‘s letters and essays is how often he quotes the philosopher Epicurus. Why is that strange? Because Stoicism and Epicureanism are supposed to be diametrically opposed philosophies! (In reality the differences while significant tend to be overblown.)
But this is true to form for Seneca. He was looking for wisdom, period. It didn’t matter where it came from. This is something that a lot of fundamentalists—in religion, philosophy, anything—seem to miss. Who cares whether some bit of wisdom is from a Stoic, who cares whether it perfectly jibes with Stoicism? What matters is whether it makes your life better, whether it makes you better.
What wisdom or help would you be able to find today if you stopped caring about affiliations and reputations? How much more could you see if you just focused on merit?
* Source: The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
